Process of treating felts made from animal hairs



Patented Feb. 4, 1930 UNITED STATES PATENT orrice I-IERIMANN HAAKI-I'AND. HUGO SUBAL, OF LUCKENWALDE, GERMANY PROCESS OF TREATING BELTS MADE FROM ANIMAL HAIRS v fNo Drawing. Application filed June 7, 1927, Serial No. 197,224, and in Germany August 13, 1926.

'Ourinventionrelates to improvements in the process of treating felts made from animal'hairs, and more particularly felts used in the manufacture of hats. As now practised,

6 velure hats are manufactured by fulling the hoods or hat bodies made from the hair of rabbits or hares to the desired size, and thereafter pulling parts of the fibre from the hood by scratching the same, whereupon the hoods 10 are brushed, newly shaped, dried and again scratched, which work takes about two weeks.

, The said scratching, brushing, shaping and drying operations 'mustbe repeated until the desired gloss is imparted to the hair, and it i has lost its felting property. If it has not lost'its feltingproperty, it works back when dyeing the same by boiling, so that the fibre must be pulled out again by scratching and brushing, which requires much work.

29 Our invention relates to the aforesaid treat- I ment of the hoods or hat bodies whereby gloss r is imparted to the hair and the felting property thereof is removechand the object of the improvements is to provide a process by means of which the said result can be attained in a more simple way and within a comparatively short period of time, a single scratching, brushing, shaping and drying operation being sufficient for obtaining the result here- 'tofore attained only by repeating the said operationsseveral times. With this object in view ourinvention consists in treating the scratched and shorn hoods or hat bodies with halogen or media splitting off halogen. We

have discovered that after once scratching the hoods a very good gloss is imparted thereto by chlorinating or brominating the same.

I 7' The feelof the dried and shorn hoods is soft treatment does not leave any odour. If necessary, the treatment by means of halogen may be repeated- We are aware that heretofore chlorine or media having a chlorinating action have been may be dispensed with, because the halogen used for removing the property of the wool to felt by the action of dirt and sweat. When applying the said process an expert would have expected that the structure of the felts, which are held together only by the felting property of the fibre material would be destroyed, and therefore it was an unexpected result that the hoods of the hairs of hares and rabbits which are subject to the action of many chemicals, and which are not readily held together within the felt, are not injured by the halogen treatment.

For treating the felt we may use chlorine or bromine in solution or in gaseous form, and further, we may make use of the known bleaching bucks, such as chloride of lime,

soda lye containing chlorine, or the so called chloro-amines. In carrying out the process, the whole felt may be imbued with the liquid, or the liquid may be brushed or sprinkled on the surface thereof. The result is different according to the greater or smaller concentration of the halogen.

EwampZe..The fulled velure hoods having the desired size are once scratched, and thoroughly soakedpwhereupon they are treated by means of an acidulated and diluted electrolyte bleaching buckcontaining 5 grammes of chlorine for each kilogram of felt. After 20 minutes treatment by means of the said buck the hoods are dried, shorn, and dyed in the usual way.

By a similar treatment woollen hoods and shaved hair-hoods get a leather-like body and a soft skin-likefeel, not to be obtained by other means or only by tedious mechanical processes.

We claim:

1. The herein described process of treating felt from animal hairs, which consists in scratching the felt to free the ends of the fibres from the body of the felt, then subjecting the felt to the action of halogen to remove the felting property of the freed ends of the fibres and impart gloss thereto.

2. The herein described process of manufacturing velour hats which consists in once scratching the hoods to free the ends of the fibres from the body of the felt, soaking the hoods in Water, subjecting the hoods to the action of halogen to remove the felting property of the freed ends of the fibres and impart gloss thereto, then drying shearing and dyeing the hoods.

In testimony whereof we hereunto affix our signatures.

HERMANN HAAKI-I. HUGO SUBAL. 

